PNWCG
Steering Committee Minutes
Attendees:
Earl Cordes, Chair Karyn Wood, FS
Sue Husari, NPS Mike Matlick, WSFM Cory Winnie, BIA
Mark Kahley, WADNR Dave LaFav, Bill Lafferty, ODF
Bonnie Wood, Executive Director
Amendments to the January Minutes-
DECISION: The rotation of the Chair is back in place, switch NPS and FS in the previous rotation schedule. Sue Husari, NPS, agreed to be the Vice Chair for 2006.
PNWCG-Focus-
Suzy Driver, Facilitator
Background-Handed out organization charts that display, PNWCG organization and NFP organization as two separate entities à changes over time with NFP functions now under the PNWCG organization.
Working Team Charters:
DECISION: Approved Fire Use and Fuels Working Team Charter
Contract Working Team-Concept of moving from 2 or 3 different Working Teams to one working team was accepted. The Charter will be taken to the Interagency Contract Working Team and the NFP Contract Working Team for review, discussion and their agreement. Membership will be the lead contracting officers for each agency. Anticipate a couple Ad-Hoc each year to perform tasks.
ACTION:
§ Identify a tentative list of the new Working Team members-Bill Lafferty/Bonnie Wood
§ Need Contracting Working Teams agreement on revised Charter for decision at the March PNWCG meeting -Bill Lafferty/Bonnie Wood
NFP Implementation and NFP Grants Working Teams-
DECISION:
Create a NFP Implementation Working Team.
Create a standing NFP Grant Task Group under the NFP Implementation Working Team.
The Grants Task Group will make the NFP Grant Selection recommendations to the NFP Implementation Working Team, who make the final selections and recommendations to the PNWCG Steering Committee, who represent the Agency Executives of the funding agencies.
ACTION: Bonnie will revise the Charters into one charter. Bring back to PNWCG for approval.
DECISION: Bill Lafferty will be the PNWCG liaison.
DECISION: Karyn Wood will become the liaison for Aviation. (This puts Karyn with two and Bill with two working teams to be liaisons).
PNWCG Steering Committee Charter-
AGREED: To approve the Steering Committee Charter.
AGREED: Working Guidelines: Steering Committee members will submit recommended changes to Bonnie by March 5; she will draft new Working Guidelines for approval at the March meeting.
What Next?-In the PNWCG Steering Committee process of renewing the Committee’s focus.
One remaining task from the ODF/PSU agreement-The Role of Local Area Coordinating Groups in implementation of the National.
Round Robin—Issues of Interagency Interest
Karyn FS-
§ Air tanker hearings in DC
§ FS employee seriously injured on wildland fires in Texas.
§ FPA technical committee currently reviewing the technical models used in FPA.
§ Vice Leo Sidebotham, vacancy closes this week or next. Carl Gossard is acting, and his job wasn’t filled so he’s sort of filling two chairs. Position should be filled full time in about 6 months.
Bill Lafferty-ODF
§ Smoke management review, 2 year long process resulted in broad recommendations. Recommendations to be presented to the Board of Forestry.
§ Bill handed out awards for Bonnie Wood and Ken Snell for their participation in the ODF Protection from Fire Review.
Mark Kahley-WADNR
§ Department working on their strategic plan through 2020.
§ Filled 5 Interagency Incident Management Teams this year.
Cory Winnie-BIA
§ Gail Norton will be visiting Warm Springs, next week. No agenda out yet.
§ BIA has nationally reduced from 11 to 9 Hot Shot Crews.
§ Lyle Carlisle will be in DC on 30 day detail into the Director for the Office of Wildland Fire.
Sue Husari-NPS
§ Fully engaged in the FPA process.
§ Fire Use Teams vacancies are being discussed at this time.
§ The Sierra Fire on the Cleveland NF got lots of press coverage. It was a Rx fire that escaped control.
Mike Matlick-WSFM
§ One big issue for WSFM is funding conflagration events. Work on a bi-annual funding scheme, and last year’s incidents exceeded the funding. Requires a request to the legislature.
Earl Cordes-Oregon Fire Service
§ State Fire Marshal teams almost filled.
§ March will be the fire defense board.
Operations Working Team-Joe Schramek, Chair 2006
Handout summary of accomplishment and 2006 issues.
2006-Program of Work
§ National Type I Incident Management Team-highest priority-advertise full team vacancies for 2007-2009.
§ Blue Ribbon Panel-support implementation of recommendations
§ NIMO Teams coming on-interfacing with them.
§ OWT’s role in management and oversight of all of the other, Type II IMT, Fire Use Teams, in the GACC.
§ Identification of emerging issues affecting the PNW.
§ OWT is committed to put energy into over all communications.
Discussion-
§ Kudos to OWT for distilling issues from IC meeting into a critical few on their 2006 Program of Work.
§ Support for the interagency agreements, especially with Fire Services, for fire and non-fire incidents.
§ Steering Committee-requests the outline be developed into a list of tasks the OWT will accomplish. The SC needs to identify of the program of work, are there issues the SC wants to task specifically.
§ The wide-band narrow band radio (communications) issue is of high concern. There is a need to develop a bridging strategy. Karyn Wood, Bob Anderson, Bill Lafferty will form a sub-group to develop a Task Order for the Operations Working Team.
Blue Ribbon Task Group for Fire Suppression-Update
Handouts
Recommendations to make a change in a previous decision made by the Steering Committee.
The Regional solicitation cannot be issued until late February if the EaTIS is used, due to the National implementation of the EaTIS. The contracting group looked at several alternatives and recommends to the Steering Committee to meet to have contracts signed up by the middle of May instead of the middle or late June which is when it would be due to the delay.
PNWCG had agreed to the following limits.
§ 362 Engines, last year, target is 350
§ 292 Tenders, last year, target 250
Recommendation for a workaround the delay caused by the Edius system is:
Remove the limit in 2006 for the number of engines and tenders, only for 2006.
Decision: Steering Committee supports the recommendation as presented.
There is a need for operations subject matter experts to review the proposals from contractors for engine, tender, and crew contracts. Forest Service has committed 5 personnel and 4 more are needed to ensure the process is completed on time. These people are needed the last three weeks in April.
Steering Committee members will pool their workforce and send names to Roy Montgomery, by the end of next week, February 24th.
Master Agreement Amendment-proposed by ODF and FS
Handout.
§ Amendment is proposed to apply to federal wilderness areas.
§ Comments-needs to be specific that it applies to wildfires burning FROM a federal jurisdiction ONTO non-federal jurisdiction.
§ Some felt a brief for the federal attorneys to gain an opinion would be valuable to making an informed decision.
DECISION: There isn’t support on the Steering Committee to adopt this amendment to the Master Agreement.
Karyn and Bill Lafferty will discuss further and bring a proposal back to the Steering Committee at the March meeting.
Discussion: Recognize where adjacency issues exist and pre-plan control lines.
More of a planning issue than Master Agreement and payment issue.
List as one of the issues for the Strategic Plan calendar.
GIS Working Team-Kim Kelly
Hand out, good summary of years accomplishments and program of work under consideration.
NEXT MEETING IS MARCH 15, 0900-1500, AT THE NW Coordination Center
Agenda topics
PNWCG Focus-PNWCG’s Role with Local Area Coordination Groups-2.0 hours
Contract Working Team Charter approval-15 minutes
NFP Implementation Working Team Charter approval-15 minutes
Blue Ribbon Panel-Futuring exercise for Blue Ribbon Panel-45 minutes
Wildfire Cost Mitigation Zones-Master Agreement Amendment proposal-60 minutes
Fire Weather Working Team-Draft MOU with the US Weather Service-30 minutes
3/14/20067:26 PM